


Forgetful

by outsideth3box



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-26
Updated: 2010-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outsideth3box/pseuds/outsideth3box
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's driving him crazy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgetful

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta:** [](http://darkhavens.livejournal.com/profile)[**darkhavens**](http://darkhavens.livejournal.com/)  
> Wordcount: 992  
> Disclaimer: not mine, no profit, no infringement intended.

"McKay."

John, of course, rarely has an actual reason to interrupt Rodney doing his very, very, vitally... vital life- and city-saving work, but he usually seems to think he has one all the same.

"Busy!"

"When is Teyla's birthday?"

Tossing his tools onto his workbench, Rodney stops working. He stares at John a moment, squinting. "Is this a trick question? Oh, god! It's today, isn't it? It's today and I forgot and I didn't get her anything and now she's going to hurt me with sticks! You can't let her break me! I- I have... things! City!"

John's hands come up like he's soothing a skittish colt. "Whoa! No! I mean, I don't know. I was asking you."

Grinding to a halt mid-flail, Rodney stares again. His eyebrows leap skyward and his voice climbs another register. "Why on earth would you be asking me? I missed my own birthday three years running! Why don't you just look on the birthday calendar on the Atlantis intranet noticeboard?"

"Um. We have one of those?"

Good reflexes are a requirement for Air Force pilots, so the whiteboard eraser misses by several inches.

All morning long, John has been twitching with brain-itch. An utterly inescapable scrape of feeling that he's forgotten something has him completely unable to concentrate, scratching his neck a lot, head low, eyes darting about, seeking something, anything, really, that might jog his memory.

Turns out it's not Teyla's birthday. Or Radek's, or Carson's, or Jennifer's or Woolsey's. Of the over three hundred people on Atlantis, the only one with a birthday today is an archeologist named Benson. Ronon's birthday isn't in the database. He knows when Rodney's is.

There are no offworld trips planned for John's team until next week, so it's not that he's supposed to be preparing a first contact mission.

Lorne is only taking his botanist to the beta site to something something, indigenous plants, something something, later today, so nothing potentially dangerous there.

This is really driving him a little nuts. Daedalus isn't due back for three weeks. His paperwork is as up to date as it gets. He hates when people say that if you can't remember, it must not be important. This feels very important. He still can't remember.

He checks the menu in the mess hall just in case today is brownie day. It's not.

In the senior staff meeting later, while Teyla is speaking, he is poking at his laptop, and trying to figure out a way to ask her if she knows when Ronon's birthday is without giving away the fact that he doesn't know, when she swings her heel into his leg. Hard.

When covering a flinch of that magnitude, normally there's a combination I-haven't-done-whatever-you-think-I've-d&lt;!--&lt;wbr&gt;\--&gt;&lt;!--&lt;/wbr&gt;\--&gt;one/I'm-utterly-enthralled-by-this-discu&lt;!--&lt;wbr&gt;\--&gt;&lt;!--&lt;/wbr&gt;\--&gt;ssion expression that goes here. Even though he thinks he may be completely failing to accomplish it, he gives it his best shot.

Teyla does not look in the least repentant about the foot-to-shin action she's running under the table, but she does have his attention now, so he hopes she won't do it again.

Rodney, the traitorous bastard, is grinning at him from behind his laptop across the table as if he knows the exact sorry state of John's poor ankle, and that is seriously going to cost him tonight's dinner dessert. Now John's really sorry it's not brownies.

It isn't until John's bantos session with Teyla in the gym later in the afternoon that he discovers that Ronon's birthday is in four months. And that Teyla is mean enough to let him stumble through a five minute explanation before telling him, finally, that she knew he didn't know.

Stopping by his office on the way to his quarters to shower, John checks the day's patrol reports and finds that everything is fine. Couple of minor conflicts in the biology lab, nothing noteworthy.

Still, at this point he's beginning to think his brain might explode if this what-ever-it-is that's hanging just out of reach doesn't come clear soon. He shuffles through some mission reports just in case that might help. It doesn't.

After his shower he swings by the labs. To Radek's great joy, John grabs Rodney, dragging him off to dinner, smiling and nodding while Rodney complains about ineptitude and not enough hours in the day, at which point John reminds him that there are three extra hours in their current planetary rotation period. Apparently it's still not enough though, and Rodney doesn't stop until the two of them sit down at the team table near the open balcony and dig in.

Dinner is pleasant. The food is reasonably good and the sunset is soothing. The four of them joke and tease each other like always, John turns to Rodney to say something and BANG. There it is. The thing John has been going crazy over all day.

"Oh!" Ronon, Teyla and Rodney all freeze, looking at John curiously. "I just remembered something I forgot. It's been bothering me all day."

"And? So? Well? Are you going to tell us? Or was that just part of your evil plan to drive us all insane so you can steal our desserts?" Rodney glowered, but Ronon just grinned as if the idea of John stealing his dessert was really, really funny.

"Yeah, it was this."

John leans toward Rodney with an affectionate smile, reaches his hands to cup his lover's cheeks, and presses his lips wetly to Rodney's forehead with a loud, childish _smack_.

Rodney looks up, facial muscles primed to scowl ferociously, only to see Sheppard, bright-eyed and grinning, spiky hair shining in the fading sunlight, and a laugh bubbles up from his gut, huffing out with deep, breathy enthusiasm and suddenly they are clinging to each other, guffawing and gasping for breath, Teyla and Ronon sitting across the table, chuckling fondly at their friends.

Something tight and uncomfortable in John's chest unknots and the itch is his brain is gone. He knew it was something important.

  



End file.
